


The rose wrapped 'round the briar

by irrationalpie, JoCarthage



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Disabled Character, Community: pod_together, F/M, Folk Music, Folk music themes (including: adultery/infanticide/murder/sex work/killing hogs/amputation/gambling), Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Music, M/M, Minor Peggy Carter/Daniel Sousa, Non-Graphic Violence, Period Typical Bigotry, Period-Typical Queerphobia, Period-Typical Racism, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Length: 1-1.5 Hours, Podfic Length: 1.5-2 Hours, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Unreliable Narrator, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:15:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 11,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26096203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrationalpie/pseuds/irrationalpie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: Steve Rogers is being haunted by the ghost of Bucky Barnes.“Folk songs are meant to be changed; that’s how they live, Peggy. Change the genders, change the names, change the tunes, change the meaning -- it’s the act of singing that makes it real, not any particular specifics. That’s what my Ma taught Buck and me, and that’s what I know to be true.”Download or listen to the podfic here (1h30m, 46 MB as mp3s or 63 MB as m4b)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 38
Kudos: 24
Collections: Pod_Together 2020





	1. Black is the color of my true love’s hair

**Author's Note:**

>   
> I have watched Agent Carter one (1) time and adored it and did no further research for this fic. In this version of the world, Peggy Carter sent Howard Stark to find Steve in the ice and he found him after only a few weeks of searching. That success rocketed Peggy Carter to becoming the Director of the newly-established SHIELD. Those are the major canon changes.
> 
> The fic cover is based off of the 1904 Child Ballad printing (https://bit.ly/3hKs07H) that Sarah Rogers would have sung from; the illustration is from American artist Mary Vaux Walcott's beautiful 1935 watercolor painting (https://www.si.edu/object/eremalche-rotundifolia:saam_1970.355.298), licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license provided by the Smithsonian American Art Museum Open Access database (https://www.si.edu). The font is a modern version of Caslon, which was used on the Declaration of Independence and the kind of folk music printings Sarah Rogers would have collected.
> 
> JoCarthage: Huge thanks to IrrationalPie for bringing this fic to life in the podfic, for her voice and viola and unfailing enthusiasm.
> 
> irrationalpie: I really had a blast collaborating with JoCarthage on this! Which was fortunate, because it was also a lot more work than any other podfic I've worked on before haha. There are 11 songs in this, and I arranged accompaniments or harmonies or both for six of them, and JoCarthage and I performed nine of them. Here's a [spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1n03h70AolNiU4W1SdCziF?si=wMgdBL2eRNGGZiO6d2YKUA) with the versions I used for inspiration. Huge thanks to JoCarthage for making this process awesome and helping out the times when I was running low on energy <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Download or listen to the intro (0:40/1.5 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/15-hFa-rEjUa1yzmqxborRoBfNfFmruKS/view?usp=sharing)   
>  [Download or listen to Chapter 1 (5:18/2.9 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/11KY0D5ZEkW9kf5PcOTRoY1iZDyC499Sa/view?usp=sharing)

> _“Black, black, black is the color of my true love's hair  
>  _ _his lips are something wondrous fair  
>  _ _the bluest eyes  
>  _ _and the bravest hands  
>  _ _I love the ground whereon he stands  
>  _ _I love my love  
>  _ _and well he knows”_

Steve was folding his Ma’s second-best lace curtains the first time he saw the ghost. Hovering on the edge of the fire escape, gripping the rusted steel with some kind of horrorshow of a prosthetic. Eyes like a war orphan, skin pale like a locket photo rubbed too long in hoping.

Steve had been singing one of his mother’s songs to keep himself company, but the words stuttered in his mouth -- then the ghost unwrapped its fingers and fell. Steve nearly ripped the curtain in half sprinting to the window, barely able to see for remembering. But the sidewalk was just as empty as a snowfield.

It was in the early dawn of the morning in the Brooklyn of 1945 and the street shouldn’t have had the crowds necessary to hide the star of Steve’s nightmares. But there was no Bucky. Steve gripped the white flaking windowsill with the rose and the briar stenciled over it, digging the battered pine into his too-big palms, breathing as if he was being choked.

 _Peggy won’t like it if you breathe yourself to death, punk. Not after she had Howard fish you out of that glacier_.

Steve had kept himself from responding to the voice in his head that sounded more and more like one James Buchannan Barnes. He wasn’t going to respond today; he was rationing his steps towards Bedlam.

Once Steve could force his fists off the splintered sill, he hunched back over to the ironing board. Then he picked the delicately hand-tatted curtains up off the unswept pinewood floor and got back to work. 

He glanced over at the phone hanging on the wall SHIELD had had specially-installed. He _could_ call Peggy. It wasn’t say, _good_ , that he was seeing Bucky’s ghost out his morning windowpane. Peggy’d met Bucky; not known him, not really. Not that he’d been the same Bucky to know after Italy. After Zola. 

He was sure she’d take his call, busy as she was as the Director of SHIELD; she was always early into the office.

Steve kept folding his Ma’s curtains, iron still cooling on the stove. 

The smell of hot metal mixed around with remembered perfume. Steve’d rented his and Buck’s apartment out to a couple of girls when he was off to Camp Lehigh. It had seemed prudent when he wasn’t sure how the whole thing with Erskine would work out.

He’d been back from the war a month and it still smelled like their perfume. A horrible part of him hated them in absentia, because maybe if their perfume didn’t smell so strongly of flowers that didn’t grow in cities that lived under a cloud of soggy smog and soot, maybe just _maybe_ he could smell Bucky’s pomade or the cotton of his undershirt or the lingering taste of his skin where Steve had pressed him up against the wall, all insistent mouth and hands.

But no dice. 

Only fake flowers.

Steve started to sing again, working his way through the hope chest Sarah Toolis’d brought across in 1913, 3 years before she became Sarah Rogers. Ironing, folding; ironing, folding:

> _“I love the ground wherein he lies  
>  _ _and if my love no more I see_  
>  _my life would quickly fade away  
>  _ _black is the color of my true love's hair_  
>  black is the color of my true love's hair.”

Steve kept his eyes on the cloth in his unfamiliar hands; on the second run through the first love song he’d ever sung Bucky, he could have sworn to a priest he saw his ghost hanging from the fire escape again; but he let him be. Maybe he liked the music. Bucky used to love singing the songs Sarah’d taught them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the sheet music and guitar tab for this chapter's song: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songs-tab/pdf/Black_Is_The_Color_Of_My_True_Loves_Hai-guitar-tab.pdf


	2. John Riley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Download or listen to Chapter 2 (6:48/3.3 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1m0JGo4Chn81mwQocPeAoA2q_CCzjEiRE/view?usp=sharing)

> _“Fair young lad all in the garden,  
>  _ _a strange young man pass him by,  
>  _ _says: ‘fair lad, will you marry me?’  
>  _ _And this then sir was his reply,  
>    
>  _ _“Oh no kind sir, I cannot marry thee  
>  _ _for I've a love who sails all on the sea;  
>  _ _He's been gone for seven years.  
>  _ _Still, no man shall marry me.”_

The second time Steve saw the ghost, he was in the shower after work, crouched down under the copper head. Singing his Ma’s songs kept him from spending every shower remembering sharing it with Bucky, how he’d looked under the water, before work, after work, on his lunch break, in the middle of the night -- 

There was a chest-high window; well, it was chest-high now, it had been chin-high until Dr Erskine’s serum. It looked out at the bloodred blind brick wall of the opposite tenement building. 

One verse, and the brick wall was empty. The next, and hanging from a rope like some kind of commando, feet braced against the unpainted brick, was his ghost.

> _“Well, what if he's in some battle slain,  
>  or drowned in the deep salt sea,  
>  _ _or what if he's found another love  
>  and he and his love both married be?_
> 
> _If he's in some battle slain,  
>  _ _I will lie when the moon doth wane.  
>  _ _And if he's drowned in the deep salt sea  
>  _ _I'll be true to his memory.”_

Steve kept singing; the ghost had come back when he’d started singing again last time, so maybe it was the music, his mother’s music, that brought it back.

> _“And if he's found another love  
>  _ _and he and his love both married be  
>  _ _then I wish them health and happiness  
>  _ _where they dwell across the sea.”_

The ghost had the rope tied carefully around its waist, using a hitch knot Dernier had taught the Howlies. The ghost was using just friction and that ghastly metal hand, no ratchets or belaying kit to abseil down the tenement wall. Its eyes were still as dead and pale and unloving as the rest of him, watching Steve with an unshined revolver in its hand.

> _“He picked him up all in his arms  
>  And kisses gave him one two and three  
>  Saying weep no more my own true love  
>  I am your long lost James -- Bucky.”_

Steve could make it out the window before Bucky could fall this time; but then what would he do? His ghost was hanging from the rope there, staring at him like a stranger. It had to be a ghost; no power in the would would keep Bucky’s face blank while Steve Rogers was singing love songs at the top of his voice. 

You’re making me blush, _Jesus_ _Rogers, give it a rest!_

But; he was here. Steve looped back around to the beginning of the ballad to keep even this whisp-sliver of Bucky.

> _“Thin young man all in the shower,  
>  _ _a strange young man abseil by,  
>  _ _says: ‘fair lad, will you marry me?’  
>  _ _And this then sir was his reply.”_

Steve sang until the water grew storm-drain icy; until his skin was wrinkled and pale as year-0ld potatoes; he only stopped when the light took the last glimpses of the man and continuing to look was like trying to peer through a shroud -- impossible and a little disgusting. 

Steve could have sworn he heard the sound of a combat boot on brick when he finally looked away; but that was impossible. Ghosts didn’t wear boots.

> _“Oh no kind sir, I cannot marry thee_  
>  _for I've a love who’s lost across the sea;  
>  _ _He's been gone for seven years._  
>  Still, no man shall marry me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the sheet music and guitar tab for this chapter's song: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songs-tab/pdf/John_Riley-guitar-tab.pdf


	3. Mary Hamilton

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Download or listen to Chapter 3 (7:13/3.6 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KVL1wxYnSSEC2ZnZHxg_i6vp4sMXK_Ov/view?usp=sharing)

The third time Steve saw his ghost, he was washing dishes. 

> _“Word is to the kitchen gone, and word is to the Hall  
>  _ _and word is up to Madam the Queen, and that's the worst of all:  
>  _ _that Mary Hamilton has borne a babe  
>  _ _to the highest Stuart of all.”_

There was a clank in the bathroom, like someone had forgotten that the window’s cord was broken and it had to be pressed against the frame to have a hope of lowering without a crash. Steve didn’t budge from the sink. There wasn’t anything that could come through his window that he couldn’t manage on his own. And, anyway, he’d been meaning to get these dishes for a week and he’d finally worked himself up to do it.

> _“Oh rise, arise Mary Hamilton,  
>  _ _arise and tell to me  
>  _ _what thou hast done with thy wee babe  
>  _ _I saw and heard weep by thee?”_

Steve believed in cleaning so the people he loved would be comfortable: his Ma and then Bucky. Without them here, it was -- well, it was a bit of a mess. Peggy’d asked to come over, presumably to make sure he wasn’t building a shrine to James Buchannan or something, but he’d put her off successfully so far. Steve knew he’d get around to cleaning eventually. He just hadn’t had the time, what with training the next generation at SHIELD 10 hours a day and sleeping 13 hours a night. 

He hadn’t needed that much sleep during the war, but things were -- well, a lot had changed. He needed the rest.

> _“I put him in a tiny boat  
>  _ _And cast him out to sea  
>  _ _That he might sink or he might swim  
>  _ _But he'd never come back to me”_

He heard feet -- bare, must have left the boots in the bath -- sliding out of the bare wood hallway and onto the fourth-hand living room carpet towards him. He knew how that carpet felt between his bare toes too, on his back, under his knees, beneath his palms. 

Bucky knew that too.

He gave him his back, keeping on singing.

> _“Oh rise arise Mary Hamilton,  
>  _ _arise and come with me.  
>  _ _There is a wedding in Glasgow town,  
>  _ _tonight night we'll go and see”_

He’d stepped into the kitchen, could feel a big body come close, maybe three steps away from him; maybe two.

He kept singing.

> _“She put not on her robes of black,  
>  _ _nor on her robes of brown;  
>  _ _but she put on her robes of white  
>  _ _to ride into Glasgow town.”_

He felt him come closer, heard his breathing. There was something odd about it -- and Steve realized, after just a moment, what it was: he was breathing with Steve. Each breath in the song, he took.

Steve kept going; grateful his mother had spent her childhood memorizing all of Child’s ballads and the rest of her life learning any folk songs anyone would teach her. Hands soapy and moving slow as breathing, Steve rinsed his palms off, brushing the last of the suds down the drain. Then he braced his hands on the cast-iron sink, still singing:

> _“Oh little did my mother think,  
>  _ _when first she cradled me,  
>  _ _the lands I was to travel in  
>  _ _and the death I was to dee.”_

He heard a sound, like a small wound, like an unexpected kiss and he had to force himself not to turn around. He repeated the verse:

> _“Oh little did my mother think,  
>  _ _when first she cradled me,  
>  _ _the lands I was to travel in  
>  _ _and the death I was to dee._
> 
> _Last night I washed the Queen's feet  
>  _ _and put the gold in her hair  
>  _ _and the only reward I find for this  
>  _ _the gallows to be my share._
> 
> _Cast off cast off my gown she cried_  
>  _but let my petticoat be.  
>  _ _And tie a napkin round my face  
>  _ _for the gallows I would not see.”_

He felt movement; the other body was close enough to touch him, a hovering, imperfect, perfect line of heat just behind him. He heard the sound of a knife being unsheathed; he held still, still singing. He stretched out the song as long as he could, repeated every verse three times. But eventually, his voice started to give out, cracking on the long vowels, pushing the consonants. He tried to start the next one as quickly as he could, but there was a sound of bare feet -- 

When he turned around, there was no one else in the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the sheet music and guitar tab for this chapter's song: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songs-tab/pdf/Mary_Hamilton-guitar-tab.pdf


	4. Sissy Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Download or listen to Chapter 4 (10:11/4.9 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TExsUqRJeECfSn8x5woutsNjVeEzoomf/view?usp=sharing)

“But, how are you faring, Steve?” Steve blanched a little, pressing the phone tight against his shoulder as he stirred his eggs with a fork. It was Sunday and Peggy didn’t need him in the office; he’d made it to about 2pm before hunger had driven him out of his bed and into the kitchen, desperate for protein.  _ You’re a growing boy, Stevie, you gotta eat _ . He’d called Peggy’s desk phone just about as soon as he was vertical; of course, she’d picked up.

“Great, Peg -- and you?” 

A brief silence as her unwillingness to pry warred with her worry; the stiff upper lip won out. “Well. Thank you. How has your day been?”

Steve thought about a man, a knife, and a song. He couldn’t tell her the whole truth; but maybe a seed of it: “I’ve been going through the songs my mother taught me.”

“Oh?” Peggy’s voice was a little distant, like she might be filling out receipts with her hands while listening with her ears; Steve didn’t mind. Even 25% of Peggy Carter’s attention meant more to him than 100% of most people’s.

“Yeah, she’d had a band -- just a ukulele player and a violist, sometimes a fiddler and a little girl with a tin whistle when she could get them. They performed all over --union halls and church basements and street corners every weekend.” Steve closed his eyes, remembering the sound of the plucked strings, the flicker of the fast-moving bow. “Made up the difference between an immigrant nurse’s wages who’d never managed to shake her County Cork accent and the cost of maintaining a sickly boy.”

Peggy didn’t push, didn’t ask more. She’d seen his file. Instead, she said: “Are all your mother’s songs in Gaelic?”

Steve smiled, hoping Peg could hear it on the phone. “Some, but she memorized a lot of English and Scottish ones too; she wanted to have something to play for anyone who wanted to pay for it. And she’d change the lyrics -- make them about the people in the room, people in her life; take the tunes and tell the stories that needed telling  _ today _ , not just a hundred years ago.”

“That’s quite different from how I was taught music -- you wouldn’t catch Wagner or your Gershwin letting anyone change his arias to make them more relevant to the singers’ or audiences’ lives.”

Steve found himself speaking quickly, feeling an almost smile on his face:  “Yeah, but --  folk songs are  _ meant _ to be changed; that’s how they  _ live _ , Peggy. Change the genders, change the names, change the tunes, change the meaning -- it’s the  _ act _ of singing that makes it real, not any particular specifics. That’s what my Ma taught Buck and me, and that’s what I know to be true.”

There was a long pause. “They’re putting up a memorial, in Switzerland. They told me you declined the invite?”

Steve swallowed, all lightness gone, feeling pressure behind his eyes: “I -- I’m just too busy, Peg. I can’t just fly across the Atlantic because a little town wants a statue of --” he couldn’t say his name. His own voice felt a little crackled when he heard himself say: “I’m just too busy.”

“Alright, Steve.”

There was a long pause, and without meaning to, Steve heard himself asking: “Do you know anything about prosthetics, Peg?” 

“Sure, Daniel Sousa -- you met him at the last staff meeting, when you broke the chair,” Steve nodded; Peggy was sweet on him and Sousa worshipped the ground she strode on, but Steve would rather jump out of another airplane than rush them towards something they were still two-stepping around. “He’s got a hurt leg, a doctor told him he might need to get it amputated, so he’s looked into it. Hey, Daniel --”

“Peggy, I don’t --” Steve said to an empty line.

Then there was Daniel on the phone, the phone scratching as he held it close to his ear: “What’s up, Cap?”

Steve took a deep breath: “This is a bit of a strange question, but does SHIELD make fully metal prostheses? Like, just like arms, articulated joints like a wooden artist’s model doll, but, made of metal?”

“No?” Daniel said, sounding like he was thinking. “I can ask Howard, though; that kind of sci-fi thing sounds more up his alley. Want me to check with him?”

_ No, no need. I’m just being haunted _ . 

“Sure, if you get a chance. No rush.”

“Sure, Cap,” there was a pause, and Steve scraped the swiftly-browning eggs off the rim of the cast iron pan. “Hey, are you around for dinner? Peg and I are gonna get Italian at the office and you’re more than welcome to join.”

Steve looked around his apartment, the empty fire escape, the empty kitchen; the record player he’d brought down from the high shelf and Bucky’s collection of records. 

“I’m good, but maybe next time, Sousa? Keep inviting me, I’ll be up to it soon.”

“Don’t worry about it, Cap. We’ll be here when you’re ready.”

“Thanks.”

Steve finished up the eggs, ate them as soon as they wouldn’t burn his mouth -- maybe a little before -- then went to the high shelf in the closet where Bucky had kept his race records. His Ma had never had the spare cash for records, but Buck had scrounged every red cent he could just to listen to the jazz players he loved.

Steve’d heard Josh White, Pinewood Tom, and the Singing Christian were all the same man, and they sure sounded like it on the recordings. He and Buck, they’d heard him play a bit -- before Josh White had played at the White House and helped convince FDR to desegregate the military. They’d seen him back when he’d played in  _ John Henry, _ when the producers had had such trouble filling up the seats they’d offered tickets at a quarter the regular price.

Steve had guessed Buck had had a bit of a crush on Mr White, but he’d had his own crushes and it wasn’t Mr White’s bed Bucky had brought all that jumping post-show energy into, so Steve paid it no mind.

Steve started out on the last record Bucky had bought before he’d shipped off, listening to the player crackle and groan. Steve took a breath, getting the record playing:

> _“Went to the defense factory, trying to find some work to do,_ _  
> _ _had the nerve to tell me, "black boy, nothing here for you."_ _  
> _ _My father died, died fighting 'cross the sea_ _  
> _ _Mama said his dying never helped her or me,”_

The song finished and Steve looked expectantly out the window; no ghost. He let the record play all the way through, getting up to wash his dish and fork; wondering if the ghost was shy. 

Nothing.

He tried the next record, and the next.

Nothing.

He pulled out the big guns -- Buck’s copy of “Sissy Man Blues.” He’d laughed until he couldn’t breathe when he’d heard Mr White play it. Steve wasn’t sure he’d stopped blushing until long after they’d left the nightclub, but damned if he hadn’t scraped up every spare nickel and dime he could find to buy the record as soon as it was out at the store.

The night Buck had come home from the docks and Steve’d had it playing, feet up on the table, pants undone and ready. Bucky hadn’t stopped laughing and smirking until his mouth was too full to do more than hum in appreciation. He’d even hopped up in the middle to reset the record and Steve hadn’t been able to keep from teasing him about it for weeks.

Steve started the record playing; he felt his heart rate kicking up at the opening stride chords, body tingling in a way it hadn’t for months.

> _ “Oh, church bell is tonin' one Sunday morn.  _ _  
>  _ _ I said, some dirty deacon rung that bell, stole my good gal and gone.   
>  _ _ I says, please, please send my good gal home.   
>  _ __ 'Cause I ain't had no lovin', Lord, since my gal's been gone.  
>  _ Says, I woke up this mornin' with my pork kinda business in my hand.   
>  _ _ Yeah, I woke up this morning, pork kinda business in my hand.   
>  _ __ Lord, if you can't send me no woman, please send me some sissy man.”

Steve let the music float through the apartment as he wandered over to the bathroom, to check to see if his ghost was hanging onto the opposite wall: nothing. Back to the kitchen and living room, to see if he’d snuck in through the open window: nothing.

Steve’s pulse slamming in his chest and it wasn’t from Bucky’s remembered touch anymore. What if that last time had been  _ the _ last time?  _ Why hadn’t he turned around _ ? Even if his arms went right through him, even if he looked like a corpse, wouldn’t it -- wouldn’t it be worth it? Just once, to see him again? Just  _ once _ ?

Steve unhitched the record, shaking fingers careful as he slipped the black record into its sleeve.

He worked his way through Bucky’s records, one after another -- Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Leadbelly, Jellyroll Morton, the vaudeville, the big band, all of it.

Nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't already know about Josh White, you need to. You'll love him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_White#1930s:_The_Singing_Christian_and_Pinewood_Tom
> 
> He's a really important part of queer music history and queer African American history and you can learn more here: https://www.queermusicheritage.com/feb2004smb.html
> 
> His life-long friendship with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt (http://www.culturalequity.org/alan-lomax/friends/white) led his family to credit Josh White as one of the people who influenced FDR to desegregate the armed services during WWII (https://pittsburghnewswire.com/247/josh-white-jr-to-perform-at-tuskegee-airmen-memorial-fundraiser). Bayard Taylor Rustin, the queer man who organized MLK's March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom, sang in his quartet (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/100-amazing-facts/who-designed-the-march-on-washington/).
> 
> You can hear a recording of him playing Defense Factory Blues here: https://web.archive.org/web/20071024034730/http://www.authentichistory.com/ww2/music/19410000_Defense_Factory_Blues-Josh_White.mp3
> 
> And here's a recording of him singing "Sissy Man:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dtv0Qiugf4
> 
> Bucky may not come when Josh White's record plays, but the blues musician's music and his influence are powerful parts of the fabric of the 20th century.


	5. Geordie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Download or listen to Chapter 5 (18:47/8.6 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vurFc10GQCJLPS916YyQXZitCeqEtLRV/view?usp=sharing)

Steve didn’t much feel like singing the next few days. At work, he went over everything he remembered about Hydra for the dozenth time with the new recruits, trying to impress on them how important it was to be vigilant, what they could _lose_ if they were just a second behind, just a dash too slow. He didn’t know where Zola was or any of the other Hydra fascists who’d escaped and he was sure, _sure_ they had to be out there somewhere. No way something that big, that _evil_ just went up in the air _poof_ because it was convenient.

He wasn’t sure if Peggy believed him or was humoring him, but she let him speak his piece to the recruits.

Steve went home on the subway each night, exhausted, and fell into bed without eating.

On the third day, he woke long before the sun to the sound of a window opening in the living room. He sat-up and started to sing, not thinking clearly, just -- knowing it kept him here, somehow.

> _“As I walked out over London bridge  
>  one misty morning early,  
>  I overheard a fair pretty lad  
>  was lamenting for his Bucky.”_

He put his stockinged feet on the floorboards, feeling the uneven creak of them. The sounds in the living room had stopped -- he could picture his ghost, one leg in the window, one out. He kept singing:

> _“Go bridle me my milk white steed,  
>  go bridle me my pony,  
>  I will ride to London court  
>  to plead for the life of Bucky.”_

The sound of a foot on the floorboards; heavier than Bucky used to walk. But then, death took a lot of things.

Steve eased the door of their bedroom open, sure as he could be he’d see a black silhouette against the moonlight -- and there it was. Hunched, like it was hurt; thin, like it was hungry; eyes as haunted as haunting, sitting on the windowsill, legs inside the apartment, ass still on the fire escape, silver arm a crescent in the moonlight, his flesh hand hidden in shadow. The ghost was still breathing with him. It was taking each line with him. Steve slowed down a little and stepped closer; he could see the ghost’s lips moving, gasping each word along with him, silent-like,

> _“Ah, my Bucky never stole nor cow nor calf,  
>  he never hurted any,  
>  stole sixteen of the Mayor’s roasted deer,  
>  and sold them in Alphabet City.”_

He paused for a long breath and the ghost’s eyes flew up to his. Steve sang quiet, too quiet for almost anyone to hear; and there it was, cracked, craving, and pained, but there it was, Bucky’s voice, singing just under his:

“The judge looked over his left shoulder, he said, ‘fair lad I'm sorry,’ he said, ‘fair lad you must be gone, for I cannot pardon Bucky’.”

Steve could barely breathe to get the words out, stomach hard as if he’d been gut-punched by a lover. But he kept singing, kept going to the last line, voice a harsh whisper, just to hear Bucky’s gasp under it:

> _“Ah, my Bucky will be hanged in a golden chain,  
>  'tis not the chain of many,  
>  stole sixteen of the Mayor’s roasted deer,  
>  and sold them in Alphabet City.”_

But Bucky didn’t sing ‘Bucky.’ 

He sang ‘Stevie.’

Steve’s breath caught in his throat. He tried to think of another song, _any_ other song, even the beginning of “Geordie” -- but there was none -- nothing, nothing, nothing. Not until the ghost had slipped back through the window, leaping to the street as Steve’s heart disappeared into his aching ribs, did he make a single sound.

And then he was sobbing, voice harsh and cracked as he fell to the dirty carpet.

The ghost didn’t come back. 

Turns out crying didn’t sound enough like singing for him.

\--

“Hey, Cap, Sousa mentioned you had a question about prostheses -- that shield I made you not good enough for you? You know, Ms Stoneson’s been working on a new model, I want you to try it out next time you’re in the lab.”

Steve cracked a smile; the new German-born scientist who’d joined Howard’s lab was always wanting to get her hands on his shield; he hadn’t given in yet. 

“We’ll see.” Steve was spreading butter on his toast as he pressed the receiver to his shoulder. It was early in the morning, but he’d actually gotten enough sleep the night before. He’d been thinking about the problem, and he had an idea, how to get Bucky’s ghost to stay longer even if he couldn’t keep singing. It was something Howard could even help with. 

He was still talking about Ms Stoneson’s request: “She’s really keen on it -- keeps telling me all the great things she could do to improve it. Seriously, Cap, it’ll really make her day if you let her try it out. It’s golden and aerodynamic, shiny, electrolyzed to make it more conductive --” 

Steve took a breath, looking out the window and counting the windows. The best thing about this apartment was you could watch the rising sun from the living room, right over the tops of the other tenements. _Just about the only good thing about this rat trap._ Bucky’d called it _The Flat of the Rising Sun_ just to get a rise out of Sarah.

“I’ll think about it. My current shield’s doing great, really scares the crap out of the new recruits when Peggy shoots me on the first day.”

Howard chuckled. 

Steve kept going: “No I -- I saw someone. Recently. A few times. He has a metal arm, all the way up to the shoulder, fully articulated. Fingers, elbow, the whole works. Moves like flesh, but it looks heavy, like it’s something stronger than steel. And he can hang his whole weight from it.”

“Huh,” Howard said, and if Steve hadn’t gotten that man drunk and played poker with him in every rathole and burnt-out bunker they’d ever found themselves in, he _might_ have thought he sounded casual; but that ‘ _huh’;_ wasn’t casual for Howard Stark. _That_ was Howard when he was playing like he’d filled an inside straight when all he had was junk, deuces high. _How can you tell a rich man’s lying?_ _His lips are moving_.

“No, I haven’t heard anything about that. But for you, Cap, I’ll ask ‘round.”

Steve glanced over at the fire escape, letting the dawn light wake him more than coffee ever could.

“Thanks for that, Howard. Actually, I have something else to ask you about. Do you know anyone who could help me record a record?”

\--

Steve laid the unlabeled record on the player. He was in his sleeping clothes and he’d moved the record player to his bedroom. The window was open to the fire escape, curtains carefully tied back on their red silk ribbons, letting the smoggy, smoky air through. Steve set the player beside the bed, then got up to turn off the lights.

Now it was as dark as the city ever got. He laid the needle on the record and laid back, feeling the sluggish city breeze sweep across him as the record crackled to life.

> _“Oh, hard is the fortune of all womankind._  
>  _She's always controlled, she's always confined,_  
>  _controlled by her parents until she's a wife,_  
>  _a slave to her husband the rest of her life”_

Howard’s friend with the record recording studio had taken about a dozen pictures of Steve in the recording booth and pressed the record for him to take home. 

Steve’s record only had 30 minutes total space, four songs and 15 minutes per side. The A-side had the three songs he already knew his ghost liked; but the first song was one he hadn’t sung yet, one Bucky had always loved to hear Sarah sing. 

> _“Oh, I'm just a poor guy my fortune is sad  
>  I've always been courted by the wagoner's lad.  
>  He's courted me daily, by night and by day,  
>  but now he is packing and moving away.” _
> 
> _“Oh, my parents don't like him because he is poor.  
>  They say he's not worthy of entering my door.  
>  He works for a living, his money's his own;  
>  and if they don't like it they can leave him alone.”_

Steve heard the creak of the fire escape; he swallowed, keeping his eyes fixed on the cracked ceiling he’d looked at no small number of nights with Bucky. He’d never had much of a chance of focusing on memorizing the shape of the cracks, not with dark hair and a laughing pink mouth to distract him; but he tried now. 

He and Bucky used to re-write the songs how Sarah had taught, make them about them, about how they’d fallen in love. Bucky had re-written “Barbry Allen” when he was 19, taking the 500-year-old song and making it about the summer when Steve had been 16 and sick to death with the flu. 

They’d just been figuring out what they were to each other, more than friends, something different than brothers; then Steve had started to cough, hadn’t been able to shake it. He’d refused to stay home, kept getting into fights at school, going after the older men who hung out, hassling the girls in their class, no matter how many times Bucky told him stopping street harassment wasn’t worth dying over. 

Finally, Sarah had packed him away into his bedroom, said no one could visit, didn’t want to spread it; but Steve had kept begging to Bucky. Bucky had been frantic -- didn’t want to abandon Steve, didn’t want to say something that would make Sarah Rogers ban him from Steve’s door. They hadn’t known, couldn’t even guess how to ask, for her blessing. (She’d given it, freely, happily two years later; but at the time, Steve and Bucky had lived with the terrible weight of a secret.) Bucky had finally given in, come to the apartment; but he wouldn’t come into the room, argued with Steve about it through the door, said things he didn’t mean, things he regretted so much 3 years later he wrote them into a song. 

Bucky’d left that evening, Steve barely holding back his tears and Sarah glaring at him for upsetting her boy, and spent the entire night tossing and turning, keeping himself up, imagining the _only_ way they’d ever be together again was when they were buried side-by-side. Steve hadn’t died that time or any other, but he’d loved the way Bucky would turn his mother’s songs, make them about them, about men like them. 

The record kept playing:

> _“‘Your horses are hungry, go feed them some hay,  
>  then sit down beside me as long as you may.'  
>  ‘My horses ain't hungry, they won't eat your hay.  
>  Fare thee well darlin I'll be on my way.’”  
>  _

He felt the bed dip on the window side; the smell of a person without much access to a shower was coming to him, but under it, _under_ the sweat and grime and grease and fear stink, _there_ . _There it was._

Bucky.

> _“‘Your wagon needs greasing your whip is to mend,  
>  then sit down beside me as long as you can.’  
>  ‘My wagon is greasy, my whip's in my hand  
>  then fare thee well darlin, no longer to stand.”_

The body eased down beside him, shaggy head lowering itself slow, slow, slow as breathing onto Steve’s chest. The next song clicked to life -- but if a bomb had begun ticking over Steve wouldn’t have moved a muscle to stop it.

The body was breathing with him, with the recording, his metal hand curling up under Steve’s chin, heavy, heavy, too heavy; but Steve could take it. 

Steve could take anything.

Bucky.

The body shifted his hips closer as John Riley tested his love’s faithfulness, hitching his knee over Steve’s as _“he picked him up, all in his arms, and kisses gave him one, two, three._ ”

Steve drifted his hand up, over, onto the bare, human neck of the body on him, cupping his nape the way Bucky had used to for him, to ground him like the livewire he was, to tell him _here. Here. You’re here._

_You’re mine. I’m yours. I’m here. Stay._

He swallowed again, breathing in every smell, every feeling he could.

The line Bucky had flinched at, that night in the kitchen, it came up and Bucky murmured along with it, voice scream-shot rough:

> _“Oh little did my mother think  
>  when first she cradled me   
>  the lands I was to kill men in   
>  and the death I was to dee.”_

But Bucky kept going, pushing himself up, staring with those terrible, milky-pale, dead eyes down into Steve’s as he sang the next verse:

> _“‘Cast off cast off my arm,’ he cried,  
>  ‘But let my poor Stevie be,  
>  and tie a blindfold ‘round my eyes  
>  cryochamber I would not see.’”_

Steve blinked, voice coming too loud: “Cryochamber?”

Bucky startled back then leaned down again. He bit his lip, hard enough to chase what tiny human flush of blood might be there. He jerked his head like he was being held in a vice, like it was a physical kind of pain to do it.

“God, Buck, what --” but Bucky put his metal finger to Steve’s lips, shaking his head as if he couldn’t move it any further than he did. Bucky laid himself back down on Steve’s chest and Steve wished, for one terrible, burning moment, he could flip the record, get to the B-side, the next four songs; but he wouldn’t move Bucky for anything.

The last song came on and Bucky began to sing, whispering into the soft skin of Steve’s throat:

> _“As I walked out over Union Bridge  
>  one misty morning early,  
>  I overheard a turncoat sigh,  
>  was lamenting for her Zola-y. _
> 
> _Ah, my Stevie will be hanged from a golden shield,  
>  'tis not the shield of many.  
>  He was born of Erskine’s stolen work  
>  will be lost to an evil lady.”_

They only had a minute left, maybe two; Steve couldn’t remember, couldn’t think with Bucky so close to him, so close to -- but he held it together, went to that still quiet place he’d found from years of sleeping beside Bucky.

He pressed his lips to Bucky’s hair, singing into the matted hair:

> _“Stevie looked over his left shoulder,_  
>  _He said, ‘my love I'm sorry’_  
>  _He said, ‘my love I’ll save you now,_  
>  _for I won’t abandon Bucky.’”_

The record crackled down to quiet and Bucky was up and moving, slipping off of the bed and out the window. Steve let him leave, let him press the window down and closed, just like Bucky always did, always did to make sure he wouldn’t catch cold, wouldn’t be taken by his asthma.

Steve lay awake all night, turning what Bucky had sung to him over and over in his head, picking apart every lyric change and taking them all as clues. They had to be, for Bucky to push so hard to tell him. 

Bucky’d said ‘Union Bridge’ rather than ‘London Bridge’; that would be the Union Street Bridge in Brooklyn.

He’d thought a lot about who the ‘turncoat,’ ‘evil lady’ who missed Armin Zola could be; he didn’t want it to be Ms Stoneson, at the very least because it would drive Howard up the wall. But the hint about the ‘golden shield’ had been as big a clue as he was going to get. Howard had said the new shield would be golden.

When Steve finally drifted to sleep, he had a plan to get Bucky back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the sheet music and guitar tab for this chapter's song: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songs-tab/pdf/Geordie(1)-guitar-tab.pdf


	6. Johnny I Hardly Knew You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Download or listen to Chapter 6 (15:14/6.4 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IHUnTNx7lUBTIi_wMOTTPAb4HavBxlEu/view?usp=sharing)

The next morning, Steve strapped his shield to his back and took his bike to the Union Street Bridge. The bass-beat engine sounded like a marching two-step and he hadn’t gone more than two city blocks before he began to hum under his breath:

> _“With your drums and guns and guns and drums, aroo, haroo  
>  _ _with your drums and guns and guns and drums, aroo, haroo  
>  _ _with your drums and guns and guns and drums  
>  _ _the enemy nearly slew you  
>  _ _my darling dear, you look so queer  
>  _ _Bucky, I hardly knew you,_
> 
> _Where are the legs with which you run, aroo, haroo  
>  _ _where are the legs with which you run, aroo, haroo  
>  _ _where are the legs with which you run  
>  _ _when you went to carry a gun  
>  _ _I fear your dancing days are done  
>  _ _Bucky, I hardly knew you,_
> 
> _You haven't an arm and you haven't a leg, aroo, haroo  
>  _ _you haven't an arm and you haven't a leg, aroo, haroo  
>  _ _you haven't an arm and you haven't a leg  
>  _ _you're an eyeless, boneless, chickenless egg  
>  _ _and you’ll have to be put with a bowl to beg  
>  _ _Bucky, I hardly knew you,”_

When Steve arrived at the Union Street Bridge, he wasn’t expecting to find a big “Here’s Hydra” sign; but to get Bucky out of their clutches, he’d need to scout. He found a few warehouses with suspiciously-nice cars out front and suspiciously good-looking locks on the doors. Could just be drug runners or any other kind of usual human mischief. One had a lot more electrical going into it than he’d expect to find; whatever a ‘cryochamber’ was, it probably didn’t run on puppy dogs and hugs. 

Once he’d done all the scouting he could on his own, he got back on his bike, heading to SHIELD HQ. When he paused at a stoplight, he heard himself singing his mother’s favorite verse:

> _“They’re rolling out the guns again, aroo, haroo,  
>  _ _They’re rolling out the guns again, aroo, haroo,  
>  _ _They’re rolling out the guns again_  
>  _but they’ll never take back our sons again  
>  _ _No, they’ll never take back our sons again_  
>  Bucky, I’m swearing to ye.”

Once he parked his bike in the secret garage, Steve marched into Peggy’s office, and asked if she and Daniel Sousa could join him for lunch, even though it was only 10am. 

He took them to a little Jewish deli with space for about half-a-table inside next to the meat counter.

Sousa and Peggy kept their elbows tucked in to keep from getting jostled as the families came in for their seder supplies, picking through the thickly stacked sandwiches Steve had vouched for.

“What’s on your mind, Steve?” Peggy asked.

Steve swallowed. “I’m going to sound crazy, but I’m not crazy.”

Peggy and Sousa shared a look, but not one of surprise; almost, one of relief.

Sousa leaned forward: “It’s ok to be grieving because someone you -- you loved died, Cap. It’s normal, good even to --”

“I don’t think Bucky’s dead!” he said, way too loud. Sousa sat back; this time the look was definitely one of apprehension.

“I did,” Steve corrected, as Peggy let her palms rest up on the table, giving every indication she was open to listening. “I saw him die, I knew he was dead. Then, a few weeks ago, I saw him.”

Peggy started to speak, but then she paused, waving to let him finish this thinking.

“At first, I thought he was a ghost; some kinda punishment; maybe.” He didn’t look up to see the pity in Peggy’s eyes. “But I talked to him last night. He’s _alive_ Peggy. Bad off -- worse off than I’d ever seen him.” He swallowed. “You know how I was telling you about singing my Ma’s music?”

Peggy nodded.

“He only comes into the apartment when I’m singing; I don’t know why. Growing up, with Buck, my Ma was always singing. Told us there were secret histories in folks songs; history is written by the winners, but folks songs are written by the losers. She got us to learn as many songs as we could so if the English ever took us, or anyone else for that matter, we’d have something to keep us company in the political prisons. Not a big fan of the English, my Ma,” he said to Peggy with an apologetic half-smile, “even if she loved their songs. Buck,” he swallowed hard. “Bucky and I, we used to use them, to tell our stories, stories we couldn’t tell anyone else. Kind of like a code;” he took a hard breath. “Love stories hidden in plain sight.”

He glanced up, afraid to see disgust or hatred on Peggy or Sousa’s faces; all he saw was care and concern. Something terribly clenched unfurled in his stomach and he took a breath. “Buck used one of the songs -- ‘Geordie,’ this English song about a bastard-born royal who was hanged for poaching the king’s deer, as sung by his lover -- he changed the words, used it to tell me -- “ Steve laid his hands flat on the table, trying to make himself speak slow and clear. “He told me to look out for a Hydra spy inside SHIELD, someone trying to make a golden shield to kill me.” He met Peggy’s eyes: “Someone attached to Zola.” 

Steve expected Peggy to defend SHIELD or argue that Armin Zola was dead or in some dank, dark prison in hell. Instead she asked: “The metal arm you told Daniel about -- was that Bucky?”

“It was. I asked Howard about it and -- you remember how he was like, at that pub, Peg? When he kept trying to bid the pot up on those deuces?”

Sousa huffed and Peggy smiled: “Howard is a terrible liar.”

“That’s the damned truth,” Steve said, with the hurt pride of a man who _had_ in fact bet his entire hand and gotten taken for all he was worth by the woman across from him. “Anyway, he said he’d never heard of those arms, but I think he has.” 

Steve tapped fingers square fingertips on the table. “Here’s what I think happened. Bucky,” his voice cracked, “Bucky fell. He fell, then, somehow, some group of Hydra caught him. He --” he took a breath through his nose. “He’d been experimented on, by Zola. Healed faster, hit harder, moved quicker; the same as me, but like an earlier version of the serum. Probably reconstituted from Erskine’s earlier work. And then he,” and Steve felt his face crumple. “So, Hydra finds him. Maybe he got hurt when he -- when he fell,” Steve worked his jaw, “they somehow convinced Howard to help, because there’s really no one else left living in the world who can do that kind of good work I saw on that horrible arm.”

“Then they --” Steve took a breath. “They hurt him. Did something to his mind. Bucky mentioned a ‘cryochamber,’ and Peggy’s eyes grew wide while Sousa’s expression didn't change. _Bingo_.

“I don’t know what it does, but I know when I first saw Bucky, he looked like he was dead. Dead behind the eyes; just, not there. Maybe they have some way of taking people out of their own minds. But maybe -- maybe these are the kind of people who think of the mind like a machine -- electricity in, work out. But,” and Steve felt a flush of warmth move across his face, “minds aren’t like that. They like to make up codes, keep secrets, play games, take stands, hold onto things they have no use for and lose things they desperately need.”

Sousa spoke up: “In the war, even prisoners who’d been forced to collaborate, they’d -- they’d find someplace to go, in their minds. Some place to keep themselves safe, safe enough so when the right trigger came along, they could come out swinging.” He glanced over at Peggy, who waved for him to keep going. “Maybe music, your mother's songs, they were kind of a bolt hole, a thing in Bucky’s mind nothing they did could get to. That let him slip under the barbed wire, find a way through.”

Steve nodded: “There’s one last thing -- I think,” he closed his eyes. “I think, every time Bucky’s come to my apartment, he was on a mission to kill me. And _every time_ , he didn’t. I think he’s on our side, Peg. I think he’s fighting as hard as he can.”

Her face had paled at that last thought, but then she nodded crisply. 

“Alright, go over _exactly_ what Sergeant Barnes tried to tell you last night.”

Steve held up his fingers: “One: there’s a female traitor inside SHIELD; two: she’s got some kind of golden shield that’s going to be used against me; three: she’s associated with Zola and probably Hydra; four: there’s a base near the Union Street Bridge; five and finally: Bucky’s being kept in some kind of cryochamber.”

Peggy frowned, working her tongue over her lower lip. Then she took a hard breath and said: “I approved an order for a cryochamber for an off-the-books R&D unit that one of our Congressional oversight committee members funded the set-up for out of the Defense appropriations bill. Howard’s done some work with them --” Steve started to object but Peggy raised her hand. “He has probably been taken in by them, whoever they are. You know what he’s like with new shiny toys and Ms Stoneson always brings the newest and shiniest of toys around.” She took a hard breath: “She’s leading that project. That’s where she’s been doing new work on your shield; a special priority that’s coming down from our Congressional sponsors but I haven’t been able to figure out _why_ they’re so focused on the equipment for one man --” it was her turn to give an apologetic grin. “No matter what an American symbol you are, Steve, you’re still just one man, and I wouldn’t expect our oversight committee to be quite so enthused with your specific armaments.”

She slapped her hands on the table.

“Alright, I know what my next steps are --”

“We can go to the Union Street Bridge right now, I’ve got my shield --” Steve started, but Peggy shook her head.

“I know you want to get Bucky; _God,_ Steve, if we left him out in the cold, I’ll never forgive myself, But give me 24 hours. I need to make sure we can not only cut off this head, burn the _bloody_ body to _bloody_ cinders, if Hydra really _has_ infected SHIELD.” Steve tried to object but Peggy put her hand on his arm. “Steve, if I find even the slightest _hint_ that we need to move sooner to protect Bucky, I will call you immediately and we will move, consequences be damned. But I want to fix this forever, not just for a night. Can you give me that?”

Steve worked his jaw, fingers curling into a fist as he felt his forearm tense under Peggy’s hand; then he let it go. “Alright,” he said. 

Peggy stood to go to the bathroom and told them to meet her back at HQ. As they were stepping through the narrow aisle, Sousa careful of his leg, the man said in a low voice. “Not for nothing, Cap, but if your friend’s arm is like how you said, I wouldn’t call it ‘terrible’ or any of those other things.” 

Steve turned to him, feeling his eyes flash wide. 

Sousa gave him a half smile: “If he lost his arm, no matter why they did it, giving him a prosthetic that gives him his fingers back, his range of motion -- even makes him strong? That’s a blessing. It’s,” he started, then leaned down to rub his knee before straightening up, “it’s like folks who say ‘wheelchair bound’; for my friends in wheelchairs, they’re not ‘bound’ -- wheelchairs are how they get _out_.” He stepped down the sharp curb onto the rough-ridged asphalt of the street as they crossed for the light. “The world isn’t built for people whose bodies are different than what most people consider ‘normal.’” He used exaggerated finger quotes with a flash of a grin. “Remember when you broke that chair in the staff meeting?”

Steve had sat in a wooden folding chair that had seen better days and would have suited him just fine before he met Dr Erskine; it had shattered to kindling under his weight as Peggy had struggled not to giggle and the maintenance crew had gone scrambling for a replacement; now Steve had his own, special chair at staff meetings and woe betide anyone who tried to take it from him.

“So, your procedure made you heavier than most people and you needed special equipment to be able to participate in the group, and it was provided for you and now there’s no problem, right?” Steve nodded, following Daniel across the crowded street, noticing there would be no ramps to get up onto the sidewalk; just uncut curbs. “So, same for your friend, except it sounds like he was missing an arm and rather than the hooks or claws most people get if they’re lucky and can pay, he has something incredibly helpful. Even if it was made for him by evil people, it’s a tool.”

Sousa paused, then took a deep breath of the smoggy air, shouldering through the crowded street; they were nearly back to SHIELD HQ. “I know it can be upsetting to see someone you knew, after their body changes. I’d bet it’s probably upsetting for you sometimes, seeing how much your own body has changed,” and Steve felt that in his belly, like a punch and a warm hug, all at once; something drilling right down to his core. “Just -- be neutral about his arm, if you can. You don’t have to celebrate it, you don’t have to mourn it, it’s just something else with him. Ok?”

“I --” Steve started. Then he nodded. “Thanks, Sousa. And -- thanks for telling me. I appreciate it. Can I --” he frowned, not sure how to ask, “if I have other questions, about this kind of stuff, can I ask you?”

Sousa got a canny look in his eyes. “You can ask -- you can ask questions about Bucky, you can ask questions about you, and Bucky can ask me about either. Work for you?”

Steve nodded: “Thanks.”

“Anytime. It’s a bold new world out there, we’ve got to help each other through it. Learning and growing a little every day.”

 _He sounds kinda like Sarah_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the sheet music and guitar tab for this chapter's song: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songs-tab/pdf/When_Johnny_Comes_Marching_Home-guitar-tab.pdf


	7. The House of the Rising Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Download or listen to Chapter 7 (5:16/3.3 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1luKk6YjieX1UdHgSGUPW_ov1LJ2wXUyC/view?usp=sharing)

Steve took his bike past the Union Street Bridge again on his way back home that evening after an afternoon helping Peggy and Sousa corroborate Bucky’s facts. They’d found Zola’s base at Camp Lehigh, some hidey-holes in upstate New York, California, and New Mexico. Once they’d confirmed Howard Stark had been duped by Ms Stoneson but was innocent of intentional betrayal, they’d brought him in and he’d opened doors on Capitol Hill that even Peggy’s astute leadership hadn’t pried open yet. When Peggy had sent him home to rest, Peggy, Sousa, and Howard had still all been hard at work.

_Can’t fight if you don’t sleep, champ._

Steve parked his bike behind one of the shadier single-story warehouses, tilted his hips against the cracked brick of the low wall that was all that was left of whatever building had been here before this wave of warehouses rolled through. Then he tipped his gaze down to the pavement, and breathed, letting the sun ease down between the skyscrapers, turning the smoggy sky blood reds and rash yellows and brilliant, opium-poppy oranges.

He began to sing, voice low and easing through the honking cars and creaking of ships and cats yowling and the low, never-ending rumble of the city.

> _“I’m going back to Brooklyn-town,  
>  _ _your race is almost run  
>  _ _we’re going back, to spin our lives  
>  _ _beneath that rising sun._
> 
> _There is a flat in Brooklyn-town  
>  _ _we’ll see the rising sun,  
>  _ _and war’s been the ruin of many a poor boy  
>  _ _but soon, God knows, we’re done.”_

There was a sound above him on the low, slow sloping roof. Steve glanced up; just above his head dangled a pair of worn-in combat boots and a pair of worn-in fatigue pants. He sang a little louder.

> _“Your mother was a tailor,  
>  _ _she sewed my new blue jeans;  
>  _ _your father was a gamblin' man  
>  _ _down in New Jersey,”_

Under the hum of the wind coming in from the bay, he could almost hear Bucky singing along:

> _“Now the only thing a gambler needs  
>  _ _is a suitcase and trunk  
>  _ _and the only time he's satisfied  
>  _ _is when he's almost drunk.”_

He might have heard Bucky huff a laugh above him. They sang through the next verse, and it gave Steve time to think through the lyrics:

> _“Well, I got one foot on the platform,  
>  _ _the other foot on the train  
>  _ _I'm goin' to get you home, Bucky,  
>  _ _to wear that ball and chain.”_

Steve knew what he needed Bucky to hear, and put everything into it when he sang:

> _“There is a house in Brooklyn-town_  
>  _we call the Rising Sun  
>  _ _and it's been our home, for many a year_  
>  for me, God knows, you’re the one.”

He sang it through one last time before full dark, Bucky’s wavering voice coming in flakes and flutters under the dockside winds. Then he got back on his bike, and headed back to his apartment. 

Alone.

 _For now_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the sheet music and guitar tab for this chapter's song: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songs-tab/pdf/House_Of_Ther_Rising_Sun-guitar-tab.pdf


	8. Poor Wayfaring Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Download or listen to Chapter 8 (8:41/4.8 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lGzm2kqBSmETf71mvmIjv7FDiX_zrTu7/view?usp=sharing)

Steve woke before the sun rose; he sang to himself as he got ready for the day. He didn’t expect Bucky to be there; he hoped he was resting, as much as he could be. He’d chosen something his Ma’s band had sung for church crowds:

> _“I know dark clouds will gather 'round me  
>  _ _I know my way is rough and steep  
>  _ _But golden fields lie just beyond me  
>  _ _Where God's redeemed their vision’s keep.  
>  _ _I'm going there to see my lover_  
>  _I'm going there, no more to roam  
>  _ _I'm only going over Jordan_  
>  I'm only going over home.”

He rode his bike into SHIELD, parking just as Peggy pulled in. She had a battlefield look on her face, and Sousa in her passenger seat. _Good for her, Peggy’s a dame who deserves nice things_.

“Did you get any sleep?” Steve asked as they began to head in.

Peggy’s sharp look and Sousa’s barely-suppressed yawn was enough of an answer.

Still, her voice was crisp when she said: “There are three grand juries being assembled as we speak; three members of Congress under investigation by the Department of Justice, and fifteen million dollars in various spending accounts frozen for the foreseeable future -- not that they’ll know until the banks process the orders tomorrow. Every agent I can trust has been called into SHIELD or are guarding those I cannot trust.”

Sousa spoke up: “It’ll be the work of months to unpick the tendrils Hydra has begun to weave into the fabric of SHIELD; but, with Director Carter’s plan, it should be the work of hours to get Bucky free.”

Howard was holding two cups of coffee when Steve got into the staff meeting room, and drinking from both of them.

“See,” he said without preamble, “the cryochamber was the trick. It can be used -- not just to preserve, like a refrigerator -- but to _prepare_ . To _change_. It’s an experimental procedure Germans have been working on since the last time they marched soldiers into the Soviet snows and discovered how motivating it can be to have your extremities frozen off --”

The edge of the table cracked off in Steve’s hands and Peggy raised her hand in front of Howard’s face, waving until he shut his mouth. “Howard,” she said once he’d cooled to a buzzing simmer. “Let’s not talk about what’s happened to our friend that way. Let’s focus on your plan to get him out.”

“Oh,” Howard said, looking at the massive hunk of mahogany in Steve’s still-clenched fists. “Uh, yes. Sorry, Steve. Sorry, Bucky, in absentia.” He took a breath, voice a little calmer. “So, I’ve gone over the schematics for the building, the budgets, the requests the now-hated Ms Stoneson made and the tidbits I’d gleaned once I knew she was a rat.” And Steve didn’t think he’d ever seen such a look of hate on the brilliant scientist’s face, and he was reminded in a moment of total clarity that Howard Stark was a weapons mogul and was probably perfectly comfortable killing his enemies.

“First, Peggy’s going to stage a visit with a phalanx of trusted SHIELD personnel, order an evacuation of the building. Then I’m going up through the sewers, as partial payment for my sins, so Jarvis, Agent Sousa, and I can catch anyone sneaking out that way. And you, Cap,” he gave him a bright smile. “You’re taking the high ground. As per usual.” Steve would have rolled his eyes if he’d had a single ounce of humor to share for the day.

Howard sobered: “The electrical schematics mean the cryochamber is probably in a hidden attic lab. You’re looking for something accessible through a crawl space. You can punch through the roof, it’s just regular plywood, and they don’t have any external defenses. But we,” and he looked between Peggy and Sousa, “we expect that Sergeant Barnes has been conditioned to fight for his captors. Fight to the death, possibly. So, if he needs to have the best chances of survival --”

“Which he does --” Peggy said firmly.

Howard nodded: “Which he does, then you’re the one who’s likeliest to be able to protect yourself and get him safely out.” Howard took a deep breath. “From there -- deconditioning someone is hard work, but it’s been done before. We’ve got doctors, manuals, experts -- the works.”

Peggy’s voice was low and serious: “Anything Sergeant Barnes needs from SHIELD, we will give him.”

Steve gave her a grateful smile. “Two questions.”

Peggy paused and turned back. “Yes?”

Steve turned to Howard: “What was Ms Stoneson’s plan with the golden shield?”

Howard looked down, hiding his face behind a long draft from his coffee cup. “I think it was some kind of electrical trap -- like, someone would attack you and the gold and some other parts of it I’m still unwinding would conduct it directly to your heart, try to kill you.”

“That leads to my second question -- why was Bucky tasked with killing me?”

Howard froze. “You think that was his mission? His visits, they were Hydra assassination attempts?”

Steve nodded: “I don’t know why else they would keep letting me talk to him, get close to him. Not when,” he swallowed, “not when it’s probably clear how I feel about him.”

“Oh, Steve,” Peggy said, voice breaking from her perfect professionalism to hover in a bit of the same kindness she’d shown to a little guy tucked into the back of a car, on the way to a medical procedure no one had any way of knowing if he’d survive. “It’s hard to know for sure, but I can think of three reasons. One, from a Hydra scientist like Ms Stoneson’s perspective, it’s a test, to see if her conditioning can hold up under the ultimate test, forcing a man to do the one thing he would never do. Two, killing you is one of their major goals, as we can now tell from Ms Stoneson’s betrayal -- Hydra is petrified of you. Your powers, your possession of Erskine’s formula, your role as a symbol of American freedom and democracy. And,” she took a hard breath, “Three, and remember that I don’t have any evidence, but I suspect Sergeant Barnes volunteered for it.”

As slow horror began to roll over Steve’s face, she hastened to add: “We won’t know until we can speak to Sergeant Barnes. But the man I knew, the man who survived Armin Zola once, who went back to war for you -- to stay _beside_ you -- I think he knew that if he was in charge of your death, no one else would do it. If Hydra saw it as something they were doing _to_ him, it wasn’t something they would assign to anyone else. I think Bucky was protecting you, the best way he could. And,” she took a breath, something catching, a bit of a quiver coming into her perfect frame. “Maybe Bucky knew if he saw you, you would find a way to save him. To make him safe again. I think he trusts you more than life itself, and that trust, that _love_ is something even Hydra’s worst efforts could not sway.”

Steve felt a trembling in his chest, like he’d caged a second heart along with his own and they were trying to take flight. He gave a sound, maybe a huff of agreement, maybe something more like a sob. Everyone stayed silent, and after a long moment, he said: “That all makes sense to me. I -- when are we heading out?”

Peggy nodded, once more the straight-backed commander. “At 11am, to give our agents time to get in place.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the sheet music and guitar tab for this chapter's song: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songs-tab/pdf/Im_Just_A_Poor_Wayfaring_Stranger-guitar-tab.pdf


	9. Barbry Allen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Download or listen to Chapter 9 (11:52/6.7 MB)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KjeKA7oFJhSF9jsXsWQE9gDK9jSO_oLY/view?usp=sharing)

Steve rode his bike alone to the Union Street Bridge. He had the blueprints in his mind’s eye and the exact point of penetration for the roof memorized; he knew all of the shut-down sequences for the cryochamber. Peggy had headed out with her small army; Sousa, Jarvis, and Howard were already in the sewers. They would breach at exactly noon.

He checked his watch: 11:48am. He tucked his bike away into an alleyway and scaled the drainpipe Howard had confirmed was the closest route to get to the hidden attic lab.

11:52am. He’d chosen a song he could sing in his sleep, the first his mother had ever sung him, the one Bucky had changed to be about them. 

The original “Barbry Allen” wasn’t really a love song, any more than most of the other songs were love songs. Or, it wasn’t about ideal love, the kind Disney talked about in _Snow White_ . But it was about the real, stomach-twisting kind of love, the kind that was good, or bad, but was definitely, _always_ true. True love like an arrow shoots true; like a gun in a lover’s hand shoots true to the heart.

11:58am. Steve swallowed, readying his cutting device. It was Howard’s new Co2 laser that would cut a hole big enough for him and his shield to drop down through the roof as easily as Bucky had cut through a lindy hopping crowd. While Steve _could_ punch through the plywood that made-up the building, he didn’t particularly want to. Not when Howard had a whole menagerie of tech toys and several years of guilt to work through.

11:59am. Steve heard the announcement begin inside, instructing all employees to evacuate.

12pm: Steve began to sing at the top of his lungs, voice booming across the rooftops, mixing with sirens and screams from inside the building:

> _“T’was in the merry month of May  
>  _ _when all gay flowers were bloomin',  
>  _ _Steve Rogers on his death-bed lay  
>  _ _without the love of Bucky.”_

He jumped into-- a dimly-lit, cramped corner of a lab. Three men with shotguns had been looking around at the exits and immediately raised their weapons.

_SLAM - SLAM- SLAM_

The shots hit the shield as Steve charged them, knocking two out with his shield and breaking the other’s kneecap.

> _“He sent his mother to his friend  
>  _ _to the place where he was dwelling  
>  _ _said, ‘You must come to Stevie’s room,  
>  _ _if your name be James Buchannan.’”_

He scanned the room; it had something like a dentist’s chair, more scalpels and saws and potions and knives and general horrors that he was going to try real hard not to let settle in his mind.

> _“So slowly, slowly he gets up,  
>  _ _and to his friend’s door a-going  
>  _ _he tried to joke, through the hollow pine,  
>  _ _told Steve, ‘Young man, you're dying.’”_

Nothing that could be a cryochamber in the bare lab; Steve bit down his panic. Howard had prepared him for this, that it would be hidden in some kind of wall, tight against the load-bearing columns that held up the roof, it was so heavy. He pulled out a scanner, another one of Howard’s toys, something like a high-tech stud finder.

> _"I know, I'm sick and very low,  
>  _ _and sorrow dwells within me  
>  _ _no better, no better I never will be.  
>  _ _‘til I see James Buchannan."_

Steve scanned over the wall closest to him; there was a sound of commotion below, but he knew his mission and he stayed focused. He moved to the next wall:

> _"Don't you remember last Monday night  
>  _ _when you were at the school yard  
>  _ _you picked a fight for the ladies there  
>  _ _but you slighted James Buchannan?"_

Nothing behind this one. The third was closest to the center of the building and he could hear a low electrical pulse behind it. He began to scan.

> _“Oh, yes, I remember last Monday night,  
>  __when I was at the school yard,_ _  
> _ _I picked a fight for some ladies there  
>  __but I chose to love James Buchanan.”_

_There_ . It was _there_. It had to be. Steve confirmed an area with no wires, no organic anything, and began to cut. The wall came away in panels, Steve pulling them free with his bare hands. The machine behind it was like a tomb, a sarcophagus like he and Buck had seen at the Natural History Museum. 

> _“Then Steve asked him to come in  
>  _ _intending for to touch him  
>  _ _Buck turned away from his first love’s room  
>  _ _says, "Stevie, I don’t love you."_

Buck was inside the _thing_ , pale and sweating and eyelids twitching. Steve remembered the diagram Howard had given him, how to power the cryochamber down without hurting Bucky. He spoke a prayer in his mind, and began to type in the sequence.

> _“Steve turned his cheek into the wall  
>  _ _and bursted out a crying  
>  _ _‘Adieu, adieu, Ma and all ladies,  
>  _ _be kind to James Buchanan.’”_

The last number pressed, the last switch flipped. The machine made a sound like a train starting up, a _chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug_ , but the wisping, choking mist inside of it had begun to vent out and Bucky’s face was rosier.

> _“Then Bucky tripped he down the stairs  
>  _ _and he heard Steve’s Ma a’shoutin’  
>  _ _and each face he passed seemed to say to him  
>  _ _‘hard-hearted James Buchannan.’”_

Steve could just see a sliver of blue underneath Bucky’s thick eyelashes. Then he blinked once, twice -- and gasped, hands coming up to push against the door of the chamber. Steve grabbed the handle, and together they hefted it off. Steve kept singing:

> _"’Oh Ma, oh Ma, please make my bed  
>  _ _make it both long and narrow  
>  _ _Steve Rogers died for me today  
>  _ _I'll die for him tomorrow.’"_

Bucky was strapped in: across the chest; around his waist; both thighs; knees; ankles. His eyes were wild, panicked -- but they never left Steve’s. Steve didn’t trust Howard’s special cutter so close to cherished skin, so he pulled out his pocket knife and began to work on the thick restraints.

> _“That night James dreamed Steve’d lost his life  
>  _ _and he vowed he’d be buried anigh him  
>  _ _and out of his grave would grow a red, red rose,  
>  _ _and out of his, a briar.”_

Bucky had begun to hum, voice terrible and cracked, but real and there and him and _alive_. 

Steve fell to his knees, big hands as careful as he could make them on the straps around the fine bones of Bucky’s ankle. As he crouched, he felt a soft pressure in his hair, Bucky trailing fingers from both his hands through it, gentle and sure and comforting and so, so familiar. Together, they finished the song.

> _“They’d grow and grow to the old churchyard,  
>  _ _where they couldn't grow no higher,  
>  _ _and there they tied in a lover's knot.  
>  _ _the rose red ‘round the briar.”_

Steve cut the last strap and looked up at Bucky, haggard and in need of a shower and starving and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

> _“We’ll grow and grow until we grow old_  
>  _‘til we can’t grow no higher,  
>  _ _and then we’ll be tied in a lover's knot._  
>  the rose wrapped ‘round the briar.”

\--

That night, in Steve and Bucky’s apartment, they sang together as Bucky took his first hot shower in months, Steve keeping him company just outside the door. 

They sang as they cooked dinner from what Steve had in his kitchen; even through the terrible conditioning Bucky was struggling under, Steve could tell Bucky was judging his bare pantry harshly and making shopping lists in his bruised head. 

They sang as they changed for bed, James nervous about his arm and Steve doing his best to be neutral and patient; and when Bucky harrumphed that none of Steve’s shirts fit over his arm properly and just went shirtless, Steve took it as a major win. 

They sang as they were falling asleep, Bucky wrapped around Steve, and Steve wrapped around Bucky.

They only stopped singing when they had both, finally, sunk down into the sweet caress of shared sleep, the one wrapped ‘round the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the sheet music and guitar tab for this chapter's song: http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/american-traditional-chords/barbara_allen.htm

**Author's Note:**

> I grew-up learning Appalachian folks music from my grandma, who couldn't carry a tune in a bucket but had a lot of old drinking songs and murder ballads memorized. Sometime around when I was 8, my mother bought me a 3 CD set of about 100 Joan Baez songs, which I then proceeded to memorize.
> 
> 7 of my favorite songs from that that are all love ballads that Steve could have learned from his mother (ie, were in regular circulation before 1918) that form the structure of this story  
> Here's a list of the songs. 
> 
> It includes 3-5 I didn't end-up including. Each song has the title, the lyrics I used, evidence it could have been something Sarah taught Steve growing up, a link to a performance of it and a link to both sheet music and guitar tabs: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K3_s0ggpMSKuKOSt3xmnkScXOO8am5u7dihjaXb67O0/edit#gid=0
> 
> Note for my fellow plant nerds: The plant on the cover is a ca native desert flower (Eremalche rotundifolia) that is neither a rose nor a briar, but since the whole fic is about taking ancient European ballads and making them about queer American mid-20th century lives, it seems appropriate xD.
> 
> Comments are life! What songs did you know or not know from this fic?
> 
> Also, come hangout with me on tumblr! jocarthage.tumblr.com

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The rose wrapped 'round the briar scarf](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28401015) by [irrationalpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/irrationalpie/pseuds/irrationalpie)




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